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WordPress Technical Support

Making sure your website is running smoothly so you can focus on growing your business. I provide WordPress technical support and troubleshooting for businesses, freelancers and charities

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Troubleshooting for common WordPress issues

Locked out of the WordPress dashboard
Lost your admin password and the reset email isn’t sending? Or have you been unscrupulously denied admin access by your designer or developer? Providing you have access to your hosting control panel, I can restore your admin access or create a new account for you.

WordPress stuck in “Maintenance Mode”
WordPress has a built-in feature that momentarily displays a notice to visitors if they happen to be on your site during a plugin/theme update. On very rare occasions, the update fails to complete and the notice remains on your site.

Error messages or warnings appearing in the dashboard
Are you seeing warnings or notices in your WordPress dashboard that you don’t understand? This could indicate that your site is hosted on a server running an older version of PHP, or a them/plugin on your site uses a function that’s no longer supported.

Plugin & theme issues
WordPress has tens of thousands of free and premium themes and plugins. These are great for growing and adding new features to your site, however some plugins are poorly coded or conflict with others.

Issues with .htaccess, robots.txt or other configuration files
These important files may look unsubstantial, but they can break your site or severely affect your security, traffic and earnings if they’re not written correctly.

Website speed and performance issues
Slow websites are bad for everyone. They’re bad for you, bad for users, and Google HATES slow sites! We all hate slow sites! WordPress sites can become extremely slow if they’re left unchecked. I provide speed improvement services to help lower your frustration levels.

Redirects and Permalink issues
This is common if you’ve had multiple sites over many years, have recently moved hosts or deactivated plugins that were responsible for setting redirects or permalinks.

“There has been a critical error on your website”
Oh dear! This can mean a variety of different issues, usually related to a plugin or server misconfiguration. In the first instance, you should disable the plugin folder by renaming it, then enable each plugin one by one to determine which one is the culprit.

WordPress Malware removal
Signs of malware include content defacement, pages being redirected or performance issues. If a website is not well-maintained, there is a high risk of Malware.

Google Analytics, Tag Manager, Facebook Pixel installation and configuration
There are many different ways to approach this, either using Plugins or code, depending on your existing configuration and your analytics requirements for the future.

Broken WordPress dashboard or front end
If your WordPress dashboard seems to be faulty and you’ve cleared your browser cache and tried on separate devices, there may be an issues with your WordPress installation. For errors on the front end, this may be due to a plugin or conflicting code.

WordPress “White Screen of Death”
For Windows, it’s blue, on a PlayStation, it’s a yellow light, on WordPress, it’s a rather boring blank White Screen. There are many different reasons for the white screen of death, such as server misconfigurations, malware or missing core files.

“Error Establishing Database Connection”
This warning is showing when WordPress is unable to communicate with its database. WordPress needs constant access to its database. This message indicates that your wp-config file is broken, the database credentials have changed, moved servers or there’s an issue with your host.

HTTPS Migration & Mixed Content Warnings
If your site is showing “insecure content” in the browser, then you may not have an SSL certificate, it could be misconfigured or some elements (usually images and videos) are loading over HTTP instead of HTTPS.

Domain name migrations
Bored of your domain and want a new one but unsure how to migrate your WordPress site without harming your SEO? Take a step back and leave the process in my capable hands, I have an extremely robust site migration plan that covers everything.

Customisations to Divi, Elementor, Gutenberg or other page builders
Page builders are great… until there’s something that you can’t do with the blocks and modules available. I can write custom HTML, CSS and JavaScript to make your pages look exactly the way you imagine them. I’ve worked with both Divi and Elementor for many years and familiar with the various quirks of each.

Warnings in the “Site Health” section of your dashboard
Since WordPress 4.7, under the “Tools” section of your dashboard is a handy new “Site Health” section that tells you which aspects of your WordPress environment are not optimally configured.

WordPress Hosting & Migrations
Moving hosts can be a daunting task! Moving away from budget shared hosting providers can have a drastic improvement on your website’s spped, security and performance. Let me take care of this for you.

General one-off WordPress maintenance tasks
Secure WordPress Installs, configuring a child theme, website audits, and more!

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Frequently Asked WordPress Support Questions

Who I Work With

Local, National & Global Businesses
Almost all businesses (including startups) are going to need some sort of online presence. People are searching for your product or service, you need to be easy to find in order to compete. I can work with you to remain competitive online and give valuable content to your audience.

Charities & Non-Profit Organisations
Most charities and non-profit organisations need help to stay ahead in the world of ‘Digital by Default’. Cuts to funding and demands on services make it challenging for charities to keep afloat digitally. I can oversee the digital aspects of your organisation so you can focus on delivering excellent services.

Bloggers & Individuals
So many people have side hustles alongside their regular jobs. This might be blogging, or even selling handmade items on Etsy, eBay or Amazon. I can help turn your hobby or side hustle into a profitable business!

Where are you based?

I mostly work from my home office in South Wales, or from co-working spaces across Caerphilly, Cardiff and Pontypridd. However, due to the nature of my work – I can work from anywhere! I’ve worked from Cairo, Chiang Mai, Lisbon and just about anywhere with WiFi!

What is the troubleshooting process?

Firstly, I rarely troubleshoot live sites for serious issues. I almost always take a backup and troubleshoot the site in my local environment, where I have a suite of tools that makes this task much easier.

Secondly, I will need access to your WordPress dashboard as an administrator and your hosting control panel in order to take a copy of your site.

Please ensure you have access to these details before getting in touch, I can provide instructions for most hosting providers if necessary.

Your website will not usually need to ‘go offline’ during the troubleshooting process (unless of course your website is already offline and that’s the problem!)

The only time I would make changes to a live site is if the issue is non-critical, in relation to content, settings or minor theme customisations.

After identifying the issue, determining the cause and testing a solution, the repaired website will be deployed back to its host.

WordPress issues can some complex and varying in nature, so there are multiple processes involved.

Communication will take place at every step to ensure you stay informed.

How long will it take for you to fix my issue?

Unfortunately this question is as difficult to answer as ‘How long is a piece of string?‘

It’s really difficult to give a precise timescale without scoping the issue, and even then there are many factors involved.

Most common issues can be fixed within 1-2 hours.

Can you help me migrate my site and/or move hosts?

Yes, please get in touch to discuss your specific hosting requirements.

What fees do you charge?

Fees are charged depending on the nature of the work with the lowest fee for fixing a very common issue with a popular WordPress plugin being around £40.00 + VAT.

Hourly fees are otherwise from £75.00 + VAT per hour if further scoping and investigation is needed.

There will never be any surprise fees, you will always know the cost upfront.

UK VAT is applicable.

Please get in touch for a no obligation chat.

Can you redesign existing websites?

Yes, I’m happy to review and improve existing WordPress websites and blogs where appropriate.

I need help with my website RIGHT NOW!

Stay calm and get in touch. Please don’t panic, there’s almost nothing in WordPress that can’t be fixed or restored!

If you don’t have a maintenance package, or your package doesn’t include support time, please do get in touch anyway as I may still be able to help without you.

About Sarah

I am a professional website designer, content creator, WordPress and Technical SEO specialist with extensive experience working alongside charities, freelancers, small businesses and Local Government.

I’ve spent over 15 years working on digital projects. During this time, I’ve also built my own network of successful income-generating websites and blogs from scratch using Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), ecommerce and affiliate marketing.

I’m here to share my expertise with you! Get in touch today to find out how I can help your small business thrive online and make the most of what digital tools and processes have to offer.

I’ve created a tonne of useful digital marketing and website resources on my blog to help improve the digital presence of your business.

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What My Clients Say

Sarah recently helped me with some custom html on my website. As always Sarah has shown extreme professionalism and was very prompt with answering any questions and giving advice and guidance.
There was absolutely no downtime associated with the work Sarah completed which is fantastic for an e-commerce website!

Highly recommend Sarah and will be working with Sarah again in the near future!

Emma

Emma Easter Handcrafted

A year ago, I had my original website redesigned by another developer, but it never fully reached my expectations. Sarah worked to improve the SEO performance, redesigned the contact information portal, and finessed the design throughout the site. I have seen a marked improvement in the referrals within a few weeks of the updates. And the contact portal works flawlessly now.

Sarah is a pleasure to work with and she even provided additional information above and beyond what she originally was contracted for. If I could give a 10-star review I would. I highly recommend Sarah.

Stewart

Creative Audio Works

The words that jumped out at me from Sarah’s website were “Let’s work together”. Our charity was looking for a supportive personal service from an individual, not the one-step-removed approach of many hosting services. The migration process was speedy, efficient and painless. Sarah has already spotted ways of making cost savings and improving the efficiency of our website. I feel more supported in maintaining and developing our website than I have for a long time.

Beth

Oral History Society

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